We’ve known for a while that Apex House, the unlovely redbrick block at the town centre junction where Seven Sisters Road meets the High Road, is due for demolition and replacement. The building, which currently houses Haringey’s Customer Services for the east of the borough, is no longer fit for purpose. (So much for forward-thinking architectural design in the 70s.) The site, nearly 1/2 hectare of brownfield land just 20 yards from Seven Sisters Station and so 20 minutes to Oxford Circus, has been sold to the developer Grainger for £3.4million. The council claimed in their Cabinet meeting of July 2014 that the district valuer was satisfied that this is market value. We have now seen the first draft plans for its replacement. A 22 storey tower block of mostly private housing. 95 dwellings, and retail on the ground floor. The architect is McAslan, a prestigious firm persuaded into the borough via BorisTheMayor, and recently installed in a shopfront converted at a cost of over £180,000 paid for by Haringey Council ie using my council tax and yours. McAslan and Grainger and their promotions companies are showing their plans in a series of small meetings, by way of early consultation. They will be put online in a week or so, meanwhile here are some (not very good quality, photos from a slide show) pics of their logic and sketches of the tower.
After the meeting I had a sudden realisation of the dissonance between the architects/planners/developers approach and mine (and maybe others’) – they actually LIKE these enormous buildings. We are meant to be proud to have such a STATEMENT on our doorstep, to give us a sense of PLACE. Being able to see this thing from the other side of Finsbury Park or from Dalston is meant to be an advantage – hence that fourth slide showing all the sight lines – how lucky we are! .Updates as we get them. Here’s one – “Please find attached an invitation to our public exhibition to discuss our plans and initial designs which will take place on Wednesday 25 February from 4pm to 8pm, and on Saturday 28 February from 12pm to 4pm. The exhibition will be held at John McAslan + Partners design studio, 451 Tottenham High Road, N17 6QH. ”
Update 2 – it’s up to 154 dwellings now. That must mean even tinier flats than the new norm.
SoTo for South Tottenham and Seven Sisters 
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I was under the impression that they were going to create some stylish buildings to improve the area, but this is just an eyesore. Think council tower, think archway tower… a building that could be knocked down in 40 years, as ill-conceived as Apex House is today.
I agree with you. Keep the high rises for the London skylines of the city center and financial districts. This will surely cast a shadow over the residential areas that it towers over. It will surely be somewhat out of place in Soto……
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I can see no reason to build this high rise block, apart from ensuring that Grainger make a good profit out of Tottenham.
The architectural design looks like all other tower blocks; unexciting, bland, uninviting to live in and ugly for all of us who have to look at it on a daily basis. I am surprised that an architectural practice such as Mcaslan would want to be associated with such a poor design. They have put out a statement saying that they are here to help Tottenham and then we find that their first steps are to build this.
This building in no way helps with any of the problems facing this area. It is completely lacking in any sympathy with the locality. There is to be no social housing, so urgently needed. Indeed the unaffordable so called affordable housing will be ghettoised into a separate part with separate entrance and separate lifts. This idea for housing has been so lambasted that I am surprised that they dare to do it, and especially in this area.
The offer to house the Latin American market will give them no secure future with rent rises that will eventually exclude them from Tottenham. There is no provision for any of the areas thriving artistic sector.
We are told that we need a focal point at Seven Sisters as we walk to the tube station. I feel that the people of Tottenham can do without patronising comments such as this. We are perfectly capable of deciding for ourselves what we need as a focal point, and most have emphatically decided that they need a restored Wards Corner building, not a 22 story block, for their focal point.
If we need a gateway to Tottenham at Seven Sisters, I fail to see how this block is going to provide it.
We already have the landmark building – the unique Wards Corner store. Once the scales fall from the politicians’ eyes, we can get on with restoring and improving it.
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It’s like they looked at archway & thought “we want one of those”. I’m sure islington now wish they didn’t build theirs. Why ape? Why not be brave and do something different. (Sigh)